


Cold Turkey

by Innsmouth



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, This is quite short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 13:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kicking a fully-fledged alcohol addiction is hard enough. The stakes are higher when it's for another's sake, even if that other has failed herself.</p><p>Roxy Lalonde and what she thinks of her mother now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Turkey

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr user yoccu requested that I answer a question I’d rhetorically asked, said question being ‘Oh Rose, what would Roxy think of you now?’
> 
> So I did, albeit briefly. Sorry if this doesn’t go in-depth enough; it wanted to turn into a much longer thing and I had to fight to keep it to a manageable size. If you want, I can continue it?
> 
> Anyhow. Lalondes and drinking, 718 words.]

Going cold turkey in order to kick her problem (and to finally get rid of those pitying little crows’-feet that creep into the corners of Jane’s eyes whenever she hears her slur her words) is, as Roxy finds out, a spectacularly stupid idea. It seemed realistic at the time, almost daring; drop the bottle, damn the torpedoes, and let the problem burn itself out. In reality, it’s not quite so adventurous. She’s simply picking a different poison, swapping one torment for another.  
  
Nausea is practically an old friend by the time it comes from a non-bottled source; years of daily hangovers have given her generous amounts of practice at trembling on her knees before the toilet, muscles bowstring-taut as she dry-heaves, the last of her paltry breakfast long since gone. Sometimes Dirk is there to hold her hair back. Most often she has to do it herself, shoving limp blonde strands out of her face in between esophageal convulsions.  
  
The worst part, the thing she cannot abide, is the shaking.   
  
Her fingers vibrate like a wineglass struck with a fork. Closing her eyes and willing it to stop does nothing, nor does curling her hands into bird-boned fists. There’s no way to take out her frustration at this physical weakness. Shooting is out of the question; the barrel of her rifle meanders across the sky whenever she tries to aim. Instead she suffers through it, mummifying her hands in tightly-wound sheets in order that she may sleep through the night.  
  
Eventually everything peters out, her symptoms dwindling like a dying fire. Roxy finds that she’s able to aim, to type without her hands stumbling over the keys, to take action without being in a blundering haze. She strikes a wizardly pose in the mirror one morning and growls “ _Avada kedavra!_ ” without slurring a single syllable. Afterwards, she feels like a champion.  
  
Her mother, she thinks, would be proud of her for this.  
  
It all goes quickly after that; the quest beds, her friends’ death, her ascension along with them, all of it passes by in a blur. So does her flight from the Condesce with Jane beside her, lines of circuitry still fading from her face.

  
They talk afterwards, in a quiet corner of the Furthest Ring. Jane apologizes for a lot of things. Roxy shuts her up with a mumbled  _it’s fine, Janey, it’s fine_  and a kiss planted squarely on Jane’s lips.   
  
Dirk and Jake immediately slide in and ruin the moment, and Roxy lets it go. Perhaps another day.

Right on cue, the meteor lumbers into view, and all thought of this maybe-blossoming scandalous mutual girlcrush evaporates from Roxy’s mind as she realizes that oh shit, the other Lalonde cometh. The bottom drops out of her stomach, this time from anxiety instead of garden-variety nausea. The colossal space rock-cum-laboratory is on them in a matter of minutes, tiny figures on the roof of the lab growing larger as what Roxy has privately termed the Teen Drama Squad descends.  
  
They land, and Dirk is immediately bearhugged by some dude in shades and a dorky red cape who Roxy guesses is most likely his brother. Jake and Jane hang back, as do the pair of trolls accompanying Strider Senior (Junior? She isn’t sure anymore). One of them, a stocky guy in black and grey, eyes her with suspicion and not a little weary contempt. Roxy simply rolls her eyes at him and pays him no more mind.  
  
The elder (younger?) Lalonde is nowhere to be seen. Nervousness roils in Roxy’s gut.  
  
The door to the roof flies open with a  _clang_ , and two more stagger out.  
  
Well, one staggers. The other, a gaunt, faintly glowing troll with a bent horn, grimly hauls her burden/friend upright. Said burden/friend lets out a snorting little giggle and paws futilely at her companion before somehow pulling herself upright and weaving gently towards Roxy.   
  
In spite of herself, Roxy takes a step back.  
  
The Seer pulls back her hood, mussing her hair in the process. Beneath it is a face with the flushed cheeks and glassy-bright eyes of the hopelessly inebriated. She smiles, a wide, lopsided drinker’s grin that says  _I’m fucking hilarious and so are you,_  and chirps “Hi Mom!”  
  
Roxy’s heart does a triple backflip and breaks against her ribcage.


End file.
